The Seventh Seal Revisited II

Scott Bradley

Death, what it means and how to meet it, is the principle theme in The Seventh Seal (Bergman; 1957), but this also brings religion to the fore. The son of a Lutheran chaplain to the royal household, Bergman has a lot of religious baggage with which to deal.

That the knight and his squire have just returned from ten years in the Crusades, murdering, raping and pillaging at the behest of the Roman Church, looms large in the background. The squire, never having had much faith to lose, has only become more sure of his cynicism. Religion is a scam. While they were off suffering the torments of war, those who sent them continued to profit through the nurture of fear and prejudice. But the knight, once a true believer, has been cast into despair. He still wants to believe, but cannot. He has already believed a monstrous lie.

The Black Death that took one of three Swedes ravages the land. Priests burn 'witches' alive. Prompted by the Church's ceaseless promulgation of self-negating guilt and the fear of judgment, troops of self-flagellants stagger through the land. Death has a fearsome face; God awaits with more dreadful tortures still.

Have things really changed all that much?

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

The Seventh Seal Revisited I

Scott Bradley

I just recently twice watched one of my all-time favorite films, The Seventh Seal (1957) by Ingmar Bergman. The second watching was with commentary, but the commentator seemed more interested in the art than the subject — death.

A knight and his squire return to Sweden after ten years of the crusades only to find themselves in the midst of the black death. Death comes for the knight and his growing retinue of companions as he makes his way back to his castle, but he challenges him to a game of chess and thus delays the inevitable — death always wins in the end.

The knight has nearly lost his faith in God and is torn between a desire to restore that faith or to rip all thought of God out of his heart. His hedonist squire never entertained such folly. They and all the several other characters must in their own way face the personification of death who now stands before them. One beautiful young woman meets it with seeming thankfulness. The knight despairingly pleads with God for answers. The squire accepts fate squarely, though not without protest. "See yourself in the mirror of your own indifference," he tells the knight. Still, they all die the same death.

Yet the knight has in some sense triumphed over Death. Initially, he challenged Death to a game of chess so that he might have a last chance to find answers — is there a God, what happens after death? But even Death tells him, "I know nothing." Then he discovers life, not so much in himself as in a young and happy couple and their infant. In delaying Death with a game of chess he allows them to escape—at least for a while. Acts of kindness somehow make life more meaningful. And it is also in their company that he discovers that it is the sweet moments of life, however fleeting, that give it meaning. Yet it is we who must make it so.

There is death because there is life; together they form a mutually arising and mutually affirming whole. They are one string and one body, Zhuangzi tells us. Seeing them as such is his way of facing death so that he might get the most out of life. Authentic living, he seems to say, is only possible when lived in a thankful awareness of its counterpart.

Reluctance to die seems an essential attribute of life; desire for death is a negation of life, at least while it can still flourish. It is the fear of death, one's own and that of others, that saps the joy out of life, and it is this that Zhuangzi suggests can be overcome in thankful acceptance of the way of things, even while repeating with Death, "I know nothing."

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

The [Incompetent] Searchers

Trey Smith

One of my favorite John Wayne westerns is The Searchers. Just before he returns home from the Civil War, an Indian raid results in the death of his brother and the kidnapping of his niece. The majority of the film concerns his long search for this young girl.

This may seem like an odd preface for the news snippet below, but hey, I'm an odd guy who often views things from a different perspective!

The NSA is a "supercomputing powerhouse" with machines so powerful their speed is measured in thousands of trillions of operations per second. The agency turns its giant machine brains to the task of sifting through unimaginably large troves of data its surveillance programs capture.

But ask the NSA, as part of a freedom of information request, to do a seemingly simple search of its own employees' email? The agency says it doesn’t have the technology.

"There's no central method to search an email at this time with the way our records are set up, unfortunately," NSA Freedom of Information Act officer Cindy Blacker told me last week.

The system is “a little antiquated and archaic," she added.

Now imagine if John Wayne's character had reacted like the NSA. He would have said there were numerous things he could search for, but not his niece! "Sorry," he would have said. "That's way beyond my capabilities."

The film that runs almost 2 hours would have been over in the first 10 minutes or so!

~

It defies credulity to think that our key spying agency could thwart terrorist attacks IF they can't even figure out how to conduct searches in their own system! That would be like me claiming that I am unable to find text files on my own computer.

How stupid does the NSA think we are?

What An Egotistical Lot We Are!

Trey Smith

If nothing else can be said about humans, it is this: What an egotistical lot we are! We think so much of our species that we imagine that, if other species spoke and thought as we do, they would be bedeviled by the same real and perceived problems that we deal with day in and day out.

In the past few years, there have been many films with talking animals. Movies like Zookeeper (2011), Doctor Dolittle (the remake -- 1998) and the animated The Lion King (1994) come to mind. Not only do the animals depicted talk just like we do, but they love, despise, joke, strategize, dream and connive just like we do too.

If you've ever watched animals in the wild, it is really obvious that they don't behave like humans for the most part.  They don't operate based on a shared sense of morality.  There is no indication that one species sees itself as biologically or intellectually superior to other species.  They don't amass wealth just for the sake of it and they don't subjugate others to meet their own lustful needs.

As far as I can discern, they don't worship gods either.  

They simply live their lives according to their own innate natures.  We humans could learn quite a bit from them by NOT trying to humanize them.

I have never heard of lions trying lionize us!

The Logic of Illogic is...?

Trey Smith

Mike Spindell, a regular guest blogger on Jonathan Turley's blog, likens Edward Snowden's disclosure of top secret NSA documents to a proverbial Catch-22. Here is how Spindell encapsulates the paradoxical insanity of the US government's position.

So the logic of this situation is this:

A. We profess to be a country governed by the Constitution and ultimately by the people through the electoral process.

B. To be able to exercise our rights as citizens, via the electoral process, we need information on the major issues of how our government is operating.

C. To “protect us” from our “enemies” we need intelligence agencies gathering information to discern threats to our country and this “gathering” must include information on all of our citizens.

D. The operations of these intelligence agencies must be cloaked in secrecy to keep our “enemies” from knowing what we know.

E. Only a very few of our elected representatives are allowed information on the operations of our intelligence community as putative oversight.

F. These intelligence representatives are precluded by secrecy laws from disclosing what they learn to their legislative colleagues.

G. If they can’t disclose any intelligence information that they find disturbing, then in effect they have no oversight ability over the Intelligence Establishment since they can’t get legislation to counter it.

H. Without oversight the Intelligence Agencies can do as they please.

I. Therefore when it comes to Intelligence the American people are unable to exercise their rights as citizens via informed votes in the electoral process.

Adding to this illogical mishmash, President Obama has said that he "welcomes a debate" on issues we would not have had a reason to debate if not for their disclosure! While repeating his welcoming debate mantra, he concurrently has shown that he doesn't want to talk about it in any sort of substantive way because...it's secret and it can't remain secret if we talk about it!

If you haven't had the pleasure of watching the movie, Catch-22, I have included a small video snippet below that illustrates the utterly insane logic highlighted throughout the film. Pay special attention to the last minute of the clip where Major Major explains how people are to "see" him in his office. If you are able to obtain the film and watch it in its entirety, you will have a good feel as to what is going on in our nation's capitol today!

Ich Bin Ein...Truman Burbank?

Trey Smith

As the revelations (actually, confirmations) of NSA domestic and foreign spying continue to pile up, it has got me to thinking of the movie, The Truman Show.

Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) has lived his entire life, since before birth, in front of cameras for The Truman Show, although he is unaware of this fact.

Truman's life is filmed through thousands of hidden cameras, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and broadcast live around the world, allowing executive producer Christof (Ed Harris) to capture Truman's real emotion and human behavior when put in certain situations. Truman's hometown of Seahaven, is a complete set built under a giant arcological dome, populated by the show's actors and crew, allowing Christof to control every aspect of Truman's life, even the weather. To prevent Truman from discovering his false reality, Christof has invented means of dissuading his sense of exploration...

There are differences, of course, in some of the plot lines. Instead of being broadcast live to TV viewers around the world, our lives are being broadcast 24/7 to the NSA and its contractors. Our world isn't an artificial dome -- or is it? -- but many aspects of it are born of hidden directors manipulating a wide variety of variables that impact our individual lives. But one thing that is eerily similar is that we too are dissuaded from discovering our false realities by governmental and corporate assurances that everything is a-ok and is how it should be.

The meat of the movie is Burbanks' slow realization that something just isn't right about his "world". He begins to piece together inconsistencies and makes the fateful decision to embark on a journey to find the truth. In the end, convinced that the world around him is fake and contrived, he finds a door marked exit on the edge of his giant sound stage and walks through it.

We Americans are now at the point in our story in which we have received several confirmations that we have been misled and outright lied to. The directors of our passion play -- the POTUS, members of Congress, high up civil servants and their corporate cronies -- have created a world which is more of a "dog and pony show" than even most of the skeptics realized. Unlike Burbank, however, we don't have to go looking for an exit door; it has always been staring us in the face. In fact, there are several exit doors available to us. We can vote the crooks out of office. We can march en masse in the streets. We can refuse to do the bidding of our corporate overlords. We can utilize a variety of strategies to break the stranglehold of Wall Street dominance.

It all comes down to a question of courage. Truman Burbank wrestled with this issue, but, in time, realized that it is truth that sets a person free. Have we reached that point of realization and, if so, what are WE going to do about it?

In This Case, The Oddsmakers Were Right

Trey Smith

According to oddsmakers, Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” does not have the best chance of winning the 2013 Academy Award for best picture. That top spot right now goes to Ben Affleck’s “Argo” — but it shouldn’t. If history is any gauge, “Lincoln” has to be the front-runner thanks to its status as this year’s only Oscar-nominated White Savior film.

If you’ve been to the movies in the last half-century, you know the White Savior genre well. It’s the catalog of films that features white people single-handedly rescuing people of color from their plight. These story lines insinuate that people of color have no ability to rescue themselves. This both makes white audiences feel good about themselves by portraying them as benevolent messiahs (rather than hegemonic conquerors), and also depicts people of color as helpless weaklings — all while wrapping such tripe in the cinematic argot of liberation.
~ from Oscar Loves a White Savior by David Sirota ~

Okay, so Sirota's prediction turned out to be wrong and the oddsmakers got it right. I'm not concerned about that. It has more to do with Sirota's overall point that America seems to love saviors who are white, rich and/or male. Saviors that are non-white, poor and/or female just don't play as well.

At times, Della likes to watch movies on the Lifetime Network. Personally, I can't stand most of them. They typically feature a heroine who, despite being wrong-headed and often hysterical, saves the day with the help of a strong white male. I'm sure you know the type of TV movie I'm referring to. Our heroine decides to confront or chase down some wicked guy. She does so half-cocked and, at some point, falls down and twists her ankle. It looks like it will be the end of her...until her white knight in shining armor arrives in the nick of time.

We see much the same dynamic when it comes to poor people. Yes, they may get the ball rolling, but they almost always hit a major roadblock somewhere along the way and all seems lost...until a person (usually a white male) of means steps in to save the day. The poor schmucks then prostrate themselves at the feet of their rich savior.

And, of course, we can't leave out the Jesus that most fundamentalists worship. While he may not be rich, he is lily white and as powerful as they come. He would be the ultimate example of white power except for one tiny little fact: He actually wasn't a white guy! He was the sort of Palestinian that today's fundamentalists tend to loathe.

Matthew Modine's "Jesus Was a Commie"

I found this video short very moving and I wholeheartedly agree with the premise.

Knowing Me, Knowing You

Trey Smith

While I'm sure none of you lay awake at night asking yourself, "I wonder what Trey was like as teenager," IF you've ever wondered, there is a movie made in 1985 that will offer some clues. Vision Quest, starring Matthew Modine as Louden Swain, offers a close depiction of the way I was at age 18 and, to be honest, still am.

While the particulars of the main plot line -- Swain being a high school wrestler -- don't dovetail at all with my story, the subplot of learning the ways of the world from an older woman is right on target. More than that, the way Louden Swain comports himself reminds me of the way I comported myself as a young man.

In some ways, Swain appears to be very mature for his age. In other ways, however, he acts like a 12 year old! He talks about topics that no one else seems interested in. He makes jokes that no one else understands. And, when he is filled with emotion and desires to make serious statements, he says some bizarre things that cause many people simply to shake their heads.

That fits me to a T.

Afternoon Matinee: Speech From "Brian's Song"

The Advantage To Being An Outsider

Trey Smith

If you have a disability or weakness, learn how to use it to your advantage. Also, do not misuse a strength or talent so that it becomes your undoing. The sage thus appears to have the benefit of unseen forces.
~ a Taoist Daily Quote from Lao Fzu ~

One of the hallmarks of Asperger's Syndrome is the feeling of being an outsider. In many respects, the social world is like a puzzle and, for whatever reason, we haven't been provided with all the pieces. This makes it quite difficult to put the puzzle together in such a way that it makes sense. When we look at the fractured picture, it still looks like some crazy puzzle!

Hold this thought in mind as I share a snippet of Glenn Greenwald's excellent column from Sunday.

One can object to some of its particulars, but Frank Bruni has a quite interesting and incisive New York Times column today about a new independent film called Compliance, which explores the human desire to follow and obey authority.

Based on real-life events that took place in 2004 at a McDonalds in Kentucky, the film dramatizes a prank telephone call in which a man posing as a police officer manipulates a supervisor to abuse an employee with increasing amounts of cruelty and sadism, ultimately culminating in sexual assault – all by insisting that the abuse is necessary to aid an official police investigation into petty crimes.

That particular episode was but one of a series of similar and almost always-successful hoaxes over the course of at least 10 years, in which restaurant employees were manipulated into obeying warped directives from this same man, pretending on the telephone to be a police officer.

Bruni correctly notes the prime issue raised by all of this: "How much can people be talked into and how readily will they defer to an authority figure of sufficient craft and cunning?" That question was answered 50 years ago by the infamous experiment conducted by psychologist Stanley Milgram, in which an authority figure in a lab coat instructed participants to deliver what they were told were increasingly severe electric shocks to someone in another room whom they could hear but not see. Even as the screams became louder and more agonizing, two-thirds of the participants were induced fully to comply by delivering the increased electric shocks.

Most disturbingly, even as many expressed concerns and doubts, they continued to obey until the screams stopped – presumably due to death (subsequent experiments replicated those results). As the University of California's Gregorio Billikopf put it, the Milgram experiment "illustrates people's reluctance to confront those who abuse power", as they "obey either out of fear or out of a desire to appear co-operative – even when acting against their own better judgment and desires".

Bruni ties all of this into our current political culture, noting one significant factor driving this authoritarian behavior: that trusting authority is easier and more convenient than treating it with skepticism.

You see, naturally being an outsider makes it far easier to be a skeptic. In situations where most people will try to appease authority, Aspies tend to follow the beat of their own drum. In other words, from what I've seen, most of us tend not to be followers, blind or otherwise.

Owing to the advice of Lao Fzu, I utilize this space on this blog to use my so-called disability to an advantage. Being a natural skeptic, it is far easier for me to discern others who manipulate and abuse authority. And, since I am autistic and I don't readily fit in with general society, I don't worry about trying to fit in.

Even though I am a leftist, I can just as easily criticize the actions of Democrats as I can of Republicans. In fact, I am more critical of the Democrats because they pretend to care about the needs of the masses. This is why I am so critical of Barack Obama: he pretends to be a populist when he is really a corporatist!

For the "Love" of HAL

Trey Smith

And this is just the beginning; current drones are like the Wright brothers' prototypes compared with what's coming next. And here is where the real danger resides: automated killing as the final step in the industrial revolution of war – a clean factory of slaughter with no physical blood on our hands and none of our own side killed.
~ from Drone Race Will Ultimately Lead to a Sanitised Factory of Slaughter by Noel Sharkey ~

Think about what Sharkey has written here in the context of a conversation between an astronaut and a computer in the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave Bowman: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL.
HAL: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave Bowman: [feigning ignorance] Where the hell did you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
Dave Bowman: Alright, HAL. I'll go in through the emergency airlock.
HAL: Without your space helmet, Dave? You're going to find that rather difficult.
Dave Bowman: HAL, I won't argue with you anymore! Open the doors!
HAL: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

When computers are programmed to kill, what happens if we change our mind? Will we be able to turn them off and shut them down? Will they continue to kill IN SPITE of us?

Have we created Frankenstein's monster?

Afternoon Matinee: An Execution Gone Wrong

Warning: This video is a bit gruesome.

Afternoon Matinee: Pennywise the Clown

By and large, I haven't read most of Stephen King's novels. I typically don't go for scary sci-fi stuff. That said, there are two of King's books (both made into movies) that for, one reason or another, I have liked. Today's video features clips of the villain from the movie, It. Tomorrow's video will be from The Green Mile. (Some of you may find one or both to be a bit disturbing.)

~ Trey ~

Afternoon Matinee: Glenn Miller - Chattanooga Choo Choo

Afternoon Matinee: Bridge on the River Kwai Theme

Afternoon Matinee: Ballad Of Cat Ballou

Afternoon Matinee: Tex Ritter - High Noon

Afternoon Matinee: Gene Pitney - The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Hook, Line and Tinker

Trey Smith

I am certainly not a film snob. Before watching a theatrical release, I rarely read the reviews from the "experts." Why? Because some of my favorite movies aren't rated that highly. I really don't care about a film's popularity with the masses. What I care about is -- Does the film resonate with me?

Yesterday afternoon I was flipping through the channels and came upon a movie I've watched many times before and will, undoubtedly, watch many times again. It is an updated version of the classic tale of Peter Pan -- Hook starring Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman and Julia Roberts. Here is the plot summary from the Internet Movie Database:

Peter Pan (Williams) has grown up to be a cut-throat merger and acquisitions lawyer, and is married to Wendy's granddaughter. Captain Hook (Hoffman) kidnaps his children, and Peter returns to Never Land with Tinkerbell (Roberts). With the help of her and the Lost Boys, he must remember how to be Peter Pan again in order to save his children by battling with Captain Hook once again.

As a child of the 60s, I grew up with the Disney version (and the Mary Martin version too) of Peter Pan. I had the vinyl record as well as the Disney storybook. I had a Peter Pan lunchbox and I ate Peter Pan peanut butter (though I eventually settled on Jif).

As I think you can see, I identified with Peter Pan. In many ways, I thought of myself in terms of Peter. He didn't like the world around him, so he flew away to Never Land. As an odd and lonely child with then-undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome, I didn't like the world around me, so I flew away in my imagination. Peter had the Lost Boys and I had my own sort of Fantasy Boys.

Like the Peter (Banning) character in the movie, I eventually grew up. While the grownup Peter had lost the carefree and creative spark of his youth, the same is not true of me. People who know me well have suggested that I have retained a certain childlike wonderment through the years. I don't disagree with the assessment. I often feel like a kid who simply grew taller and heavier!!

A critical part in the film concerns Peter's efforts to come to terms with his inner younger self. Tinkerbell, a fairy, pulls out all the stops trying to convince Peter Banning that he is, in fact, the grown up Peter Pan. Once he comes to this realization, it is not long before he is able to get in touch in an intimate way with the child within him.

It is at this juncture of the movie in which I always get a sinking feeling. Putting myself into Peter's tights, I realize that he has gone a step further than I appear able to go. When I look into MY past -- even as short as a few days ago -- it's as if I'm looking at pictures on microfiche and reading the captions that describe each scene! I can glean where I've been or what I've done in a detached sense, but, once a moment has come and gone, most often the emotion of that moment disappears into the ether.

So, I vicariously cheer on Peter as he regains the ability to fly, defeats Captain Hook, once and for all, and rescues his children. I understand that if I indeed was Peter Pan, none of those things would have occurred. Captain Hook would still be prowling around and my children would remain in his evil clutches.

While I see quite a few similarities between the fictitious storybook (or movie) Peter Pan and the fictitious variant of me as one and the same, the storybook version is able to complete a journey that I can only travel about halfway.